Graham Brady: ‘Cameron and Osborne thought the rules didn’t apply – they simply had to win’

In the final exclusive extract from Kingmaker, the 1922 Committee’s former chair reveals Cameron’s fatal flaw and ‘final act of petulance’

I had my first run-ins with David Cameron long before he became prime minister. We hadn’t started on what Dave would have seen as the right foot for me to be an easy chairman, which was one of the reasons he repeatedly tried – always clumsily – to get rid of me or sideline the 1922 Committee throughout his premiership. At least, though, he had a veneer of politeness, which his political other half George Osborne lacked.
George had a harder time than Dave concealing his contempt for other people. I remember walking into the tea room with him and David Miliband, then Labour’s schools minister, when Tony Blair was PM and Michael Howard leader of the Opposition. 
I’d just asked Miliband a question in the chamber about his government’s policy on grammar schools and when George clapped eyes on me, he turned to Miliband and said: ‘Oh, David, don’t bother about Graham. He’s a grammar-school boy, you know.’
It was a particularly annoying comment, dismissive and haughty. It underlined the way George, and I suppose David Cameron too, just didn’t understand those who weren’t their people, from their backgrounds.
Nevertheless, they were sharp and had come up with some of Michael Howard’s best attack lines in their prep meetings for Prime Minister’s Questions. After our defeat at the 2005 general election, I felt that Michael was stringing out his departure to give his protégés more time to get in position. It didn’t sit well with me at all. 
When the leadership election did get going, I was probably pretty irritating to Dave. The more obvious it became that Dave was going to beat the other front runner, David Davis, the more I doubled down on trying to make the case for DD. It is hugely to Cameron’s credit that he kept me on in a job at all after he became leader. 
Dave clearly loved politics and thought he would be good at being Conservative leader. But I began to question what he actually wanted to do as leader, other than make people like us again? It wasn’t enough.
It was December 2006 when I accompanied Cameron on a visit to Brussels to meet with our MEP delegation [while I was serving as shadow Europe minister]. Our first meeting was with trade commissioner Peter Mandelson. On his return to London that evening, Dave and his wife, Sam, were having dinner with Prince Charles and Camilla – courtesy of mutual friends, the Montefiores. Cameron cracked lots of jokes. They tended to be repetitive, and sometimes off colour. ‘It’s my day of two queens, Mandy [Mandelson] and Camilla!’
In the afternoon, he had a courtesy call with Prince Leopold of Belgium. This led to a revision of the joke: ‘It’s my day of three princes: Prince of Darkness, Prince Leopold and Prince Charles!’
I was amused to see that Mandelson had a life-size cardboard cut-out of Robbie Williams in his outer office. Leaning forward to Cameron confidentially, Mandelson said: ‘If I can be political for a moment [is he ever not?]… Gordon Brown won’t be in a position to lead the debate over Europe – but you could.’ It intrigued me to see Mandelson advising the Tory leader on his Europe strategy whilst taking a swipe at his Labour colleague Brown.
By September 2011, 16 months into Cameron’s premiership, my Conservative colleagues were pretty miserable. A combination of slow bureaucracy and having to work in a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. But when I met with Cameron in his Downing Street study, he was always supremely relaxed and was dismissive of my warnings. 
I have always believed that all prime ministers go mad, and the measure of how good they are is the length of time it takes. I started to worry that Dave was already only hearing what he wanted to hear.
The thing he really didn’t seem to be picking up at all was chatter about Europe. I think he really thought that the Conservative Party would just obey his command to “stop banging on” about it.
He was wrong and the following month, after a public petition calling for a an in/out referendum on EU membership reached 100,000 signatures, he bowed to pressure and agreed to allow a debate and vote on the subject. The motion said the public should have three options put to them in a national poll: remaining, leaving, or reforming the terms of the UK’s membership.
Beforehand I was asked to write a piece [for this newspaper] calling for a free vote. This would be my biggest provocation yet as chairman, but I agreed, quoting a statement by Cameron himself that colleagues must be free to express their will. 
In the event, the vote was whipped, but 81 Tories, including myself, defied the whip and voted for the motion. The fact was that the prime minister and his chancellor had no reserves of goodwill on which to draw, no affection. They expected loyalty from the colleagues to whom they had shown no loyalty themselves. 
The following week, I had a meeting with Cameron at Number 10. He came down from the flat in his shirtsleeves looking harassed, tired and cross. ‘I might as well be frank, Graham. I was just appalled at what you did last week… I mean you’re chairman of the f—— 1922 Committee, and you’ve voted against the government 11 times! Don’t you feel any loyalty to the government?’
I said that the whole thing had been woefully mishandled and that I would have lost all credibility had I voted with the government. 
‘It’s frankly nonsense that it could have been [a one-line whip] without consequences; [the government] might even have lost… I respect those who want out and voted accordingly – but it wasn’t in your election address, I’ve looked!’
Was I that far under his skin that he’d gone back through my old campaign material? I retorted that my views had been completely consistent. I refrained from adding that it was a damned cheek coming from someone who had ripped up our manifesto and done so much – like the referendum on the alternative vote – that wasn’t in it!
Over the next 12 months, relations between Cameron and his backbench MPs got worse. When I met with him in September 2012 he looked tired and grey. ‘Now you’re going to tell me the party is pretty unhappy?’ Maybe he was finally getting it. 
On September 13, I had a message from Nadine Dorries. Could I see her briefly near the top of the escalators in Portcullis House? I popped downstairs in the lift and she came rushing by, and in plain sight, handed me what was letter number three calling for a confidence vote on Cameron. I was rather surprised she had taken so long.
Immediately afterwards, I bumped into journalist Simon Walters: ‘The Spectator blog says you’ve got 14 letters?’ 
‘Only I would know, and I’ve said nothing to anyone.’ 
‘Bloody hell! It’s like a line from Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.’
My relationship with Cameron remained cordial but was never close. He was assiduous in making time for regular meetings, at least recognising that it would look bad if I was asked by the media when we had last spoken and I couldn’t answer. Typically, he would kick off his shoes and put his feet up on the coffee table with his hands behind his head and spend 20 or 30 minutes hearing my observations. 
I always suspected that he wasn’t that interested, but found it a welcome period of calm in the middle of a busy day. 
Towards the end of the coalition years, in April 2014, I saw Cameron in Number 10 while he was preparing to host a Sikh festival. The culture secretary, Maria Miller, was in difficulties over her use of expenses, and a sex scandal seemed to be brewing around the Parliamentary Resources group (when the head of the unit, who later resigned, was accused of spending taxpayers’ money on a hotel room used for an alleged ‘orgy’ during the Tory Party Conference in Manchester.)
The real Dave was much in evidence: ‘The fact is, a lot of politics is just s—: it’s choosing the least bad option. People think I wake up and decide, ‘Let’s put someone in front of the Standards Committee.’ The fact is, life would be easier if colleagues paid their expenses on time [sic] and didn’t snort coke and sodomise each other!’ 
By October 2014, Cameron was less relaxed. It had become commonplace to say that he only had two modes: complacency or panic. I saw him on the day of the Clacton by-election in which Douglas Carswell, who had defected to Ukip, was standing under his new party colours. This anticipated drift of the Tory vote to Ukip was a cue to discuss with Cameron the general election that would take place the following May. 
It was obvious to me both that he expected the result to lead to a renewal of the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition, and also that he would prefer that outcome to the possibility of a Conservative majority, which would be harder for him to manage. When I raised the possibility that we might secure a majority without the Liberal Democrats, he was visibly uncomfortable. I had the sense that actually winning the general election was his nightmare scenario. 
I had been a thorn in Cameron’s flesh for more than a decade. I knew most of his flaws very well indeed. But in the early spring of 2016, I finally spotted his fatal flaw. 
I met the PM in his study. Conscious of the huge tension within the party over the forthcoming Brexit referendum, I urged him to address the campaign in the same way that Harold Wilson did in 1975. I suggested he make a speech setting out his view, but go on to say that ‘the choice is for you, the people. I will implement your decision.’
He looked at me impatiently. 
‘I can’t.’ 
‘Why not?’
A short pause. ‘Because I have to win.’
He handled the ensuing campaign in exactly that vein. Loyal MPs who nonetheless chose to back Brexit were treated not as colleagues with a different view, but as rebels who had betrayed Cameron. Underlying that assumption was the presumption that Remain would win, and that Cameron and Osborne would carry on at the top of the party for many years, dispensing patronage in return.
It wasn’t just in how they managed the party that they made these huge errors of judgment. They also refused to allow the civil service to prepare for an ‘Out’ vote, meaning the country was woefully underprepared for the result when it came. 
I found Cameron and Osborne’s behaviour unprincipled both in the run-up to the campaign, and during it. Much was made of the Brexit bus and the £350 million claim, but it seemed to me that the Conservative leadership was more than prepared to weight things in Remain’s favour. Osborne had seen how the referendum on Scottish independence had been won for the UK by frightening people about the uncertainties of independence, and so he launched his own ‘Project Fear’. They simply had to win.
The morning after the referendum, I was up at 5.30am to begin an exhaustive round of media. It would be difficult for the Tory Party and I wanted to give some reassurance to the public. 
The first question was always: ‘Isn’t it now impossible for David Cameron to remain prime minister? My response was growing increasingly polished by the 19th interview of the morning as I spoke live to BBC TV: ‘On the contrary, in a time of great change and uncertainty, it is essential that David Cameron should remain prime minister, to offer stability and direction and to calm the financial markets…’ 
As I spoke, I saw on the TV monitor in front of my feet Cameron leaving Number 10 and walking to a lectern. The subtitle ‘Cameron resigns’ appeared. And I was forced to make the swiftest handbrake turn in my broadcasting history.
I can see that it would have been difficult for Cameron to remain in the long term given the nature of the campaign that he and Osborne had fought, but walking out that morning seemed calculated to increase uncertainty and turbulence. It was an act of petulance, either intended to make the fallout from the referendum result worse, or, at the very least, showing indifference to the consequences. 
And things would only get bumpier.
Extracted from Kingmaker: Secrets, Lies, and the Truth about Five Prime Ministers, by Sir Graham Brady, is out on 26 September (£25, Ithaka Press); books.telegraph.co.uk  
I was the model of discretion… until now
Read on for a bonus extract on the last days of Theresa May’s reign
By the time Theresa May became prime minister, I knew her pretty well. I had been in her team when she was made shadow education and employment secretary in 1999. More awkward than having to respond to constant good employment figures for the government were the team meetings that she held, a precursor to the problems she would create for herself as leader 16 years later. 
The shadow ministerial team would sit in her office, while nobody said anything. There were painful, long silences. And it wasn’t just at work that she was wooden. She once kindly held ‘team’ Christmas drinks at her constituency home, to which we brought our children. The chairs were arranged around the edge of the room so that no one could easily talk to anyone else and, just as in our team meetings, we all sat in silence. 
Eventually, to our immense relief, her cardigan-clad husband Philip came in and offered us a glass of wine. 
As well as being notably bad at building rapport, Theresa openly competed with her team members. If there were any opportunities, she believed she should have them. She took very poorly to anyone who didn’t understand that. Even Damian Green, who had been her friend since university, got a huge dressing-down from her in front of the rest of us when, as shadow schools minister, he went on Newsnight. He’d had the temerity to do a media interview when she should have done it. 
So she couldn’t do the people side of politics and she couldn’t deal with a team. But I always admired her unwavering sense of public service. 
I was very surprised at the way that the public was warming to her – perhaps because she was slightly awkward. It made a change from David Cameron’s slickness. Maybe I had been wrong.
When the election was called in June 2017, many people assumed that Theresa was going to ‘crush the saboteurs’ trying to wreck her Brexit negotiations. Instead, 33 good colleagues lost their seats. The next day, she spoke from the steps of Number 10. Her tone was one of victory. I received messages from furious MPs and ex-members, some of whom were facing real financial difficulty as a result of her gamble. 
When I saw her in her study she looked more as I had imagined: shaken, wounded and regretful. The disconnect between her messaging and reality meant I had to tell her some home truths. She needed to act as though she had lost the majority. I couldn’t quite believe I had to spell that out to her. 
She would now require goodwill if she was going to make progress on the central task of securing our withdrawal from the EU. But that goodwill was absent. 
The first epistle calling for a vote on Theresa’s leadership was submitted almost as soon as she became leader, but that one was withdrawn in March 2018. Others started to come in on July 8 2018. By July 18 there were 18. When the House returned in September, the number went ticking up. 
On Tuesday December 11 2018, I was walking down the corridor outside the members’ library when a colleague reached into his inside pocket and handed me an envelope. ‘I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this,’ he said wearily. ‘But it has.’ 
I couldn’t give any indication that this was number 48. This unknowing colleague had hit the bullseye (15 per cent of the parliamentary party).
Trying to remain cool, I walked back to my office, took a few deep breaths and started thinking through how I’d contact the prime minister, who was at a Nato summit in Warsaw. Moments later, a knock on the door. An MP came in: ‘The letter I gave you a couple of weeks ago… the time just doesn’t feel right now. Can I withdraw it?’
Again, I couldn’t show emotion. Back to 47! I’m pretty good at keeping calm, but much more of this and my nerves would be shot to hell.
That afternoon, another six letters arrived. The tension in Theresa’s voice was evident when I told her by phone that we’d reached the threshold. It was difficult to tell to what extent she had been aware of the danger she was in. Theresa always seemed to regard her colleagues with incomprehension, as though she had not the slightest insight into what motivated their actions.
When she won the confidence vote with 200 votes to 117, she sounded relieved, and possibly a little pleased. But just months later, on Saturday March 23 I took a call from Geoffrey Cox. ‘I’m acting in the role of family lawyer for a group of cabinet ministers: Hunt, Javid, Gove. What is the quickest that we could conclude a leadership election? Could it be a parliamentary contest only? Could an interim leader be appointed?’ 
I said it would be unlikely to be less than a month, maybe six weeks, depending on the board of the party. He asked whether I would join a delegation with cabinet ministers to ask Theresa to name her departure date – maybe it would help her get her Withdrawal Agreement through? 
Otherwise, he set out a scenario in which the Commons might force the government to agree to remain in the Customs Union, in which case a third of the cabinet would resign. There could be a confidence vote and we might have to fight a general election with a leader whom the party had already condemned.
By now colleagues were broken, angry and dog-tired. The majority view was that we should find a way for Theresa to go with dignity. The alternative would be to hold another confidence vote, but this would involve changing the rules, given how recent the last vote had been. We were conscious of the decades of scarring that had followed the Thatcher regicide.
I was to see Theresa on April 23 and put a suggestion to her – rather than us changing the rules, she could request that we organise another vote. We had hoped that this would give her some agency. 
She responded angrily, with tears in her eyes, as though I was betraying her. ‘I’ve done everything! I even promised to resign if they would vote through the Withdrawal Agreement. I kept my part of the bargain – they broke theirs!’ Her sense of betrayal was palpable. 
One week later, on Tuesday April 30, I spoke at a lunch for party donors at CCHQ. My line was fairly blunt: ‘She will have to go because she has failed.’ No one present disagreed. The only questions were why we hadn’t got rid of her sooner.
At 3:30pm I entered Number 10 via Horse Guards in an attempt to avoid being clocked and I saw Theresa again. My mission was to try to get her to set out the timetable for her departure. She was upset and angry by turns, trying to change the subject: ‘I’m sure we’ve got other things to talk about?’
By this point, the trust that we had enjoyed in our early meetings was gone. She was suspicious of everyone and, to be fair, this wasn’t without reason.
She told me that she was aware that there were forces working against her. She had begun to think that I was one of them. 
Ultimately, May was wrong in that assessment. I had actively tried to sustain trust and to show her how she could work with the majority of Tory MPs. Only when things became truly untenable had that changed. 
The Executive met on May 22, the day before a European Parliament election. Nigel Evans proposed that we vote again on a rule change to allow a further confidence vote, but keep the ballot papers uncounted as long as she agreed to name her date. We agreed that this date must be no later than June 10. 
As it was, the European election marked a further collapse in the mood – we achieved nine per cent of the vote, the worst Conservative result in history. May announced her resignation outside 10 Downing Street on May 24. 
At the time of writing, I still have the envelope in a drawer, unopened. I strongly suspect that the votes were in favour of changing the rules. 
Extracted from Kingmaker: Secrets, Lies, and the Truth about Five Prime Ministers, by Sir Graham Brady, is out on 26 September (£25, Ithaka Press); books.telegraph.co.uk